You're Safe With Me
by curiousvitality
Summary: How a little something there came to be what they both never expected. Effie and Haymitch.
1. Prologue

This story may go down a lot of directions because God do I have a lot of ideas, but it will ultimately always be the story of how Effie and Haymitch came to be.

And now, the very confusing prologue, and I'm uploading Chapter 1 straightaway.

**Songs**

Kissing You – Des'ree

Postcards From Italy – Beirut

The Wolves (Act l and ll) – Bon Iver

**Prologue**

It had happened so suddenly, but you could never really predict when these kinds of things would occur. So there they lay, on the empty street between Victors Village and the rest of the District. Complete silence around the pair since the attacker had fled, the chill that came with night descending on them and adding to the feeling that they were alone in the world. No one had heard her screams after all.

The blood was still seeping through Haymitch's shirt, and a distraught Effie could only try to staunch the flow. Her white hands were covered with the shiny red liquid, and the tears that fell from her eyes downwards could not even begin to distill the colour.

"Haymitch….no…."

Effie was panicking, and had no idea what to do. She wasn't a healer – her solution was always to stick a band-aid on whatever hurt. She put her shaky hands together and began applying pressure to Haymitch's chest, like she had seen done on TV before, and occasionally in the rebel's hospital. Up and down, up and down. Haymitch's hands grabbed hers however, and quickly put a stop to the motion. He didn't let go and instead brought Effie's hands to his mouth for a soft and quick kiss.

"Effie, darling, I'm still breathing."

"Yes, right."

The tears were falling hard and fast now. Neither let go, and Effie found herself falling in the grey eyes that were watching her steadily. Those grey eyes she now felt she knew so well, that were familiar to her in so many stages and emotions. Eyes that could be made of steel hard determination, or filled with so much pain they threatened to spill over. Eyes in which she could see a light slowly going out, dimming at a steady pace.

"Well, we knew it would happen soon enough, huh Blue Eyes? They were never going to rest 'til they got me."

"Maybe…I can still run, run and get help! Haymitch…please! There must be something I can do."

Effie's voice cracked on the last word, knowing it was a last ditch effort.

"I know a bad wound when I see one. No use. I'd rather you just stay with me."

Slowly, Haymitch lifted a trembling hand and caressed Effie's cheek. Now there were tears in his eyes too. The grey eyes never left the blue while many things that had gone unspoken seemed to pass through the both of them. _I forgive you. I wish I hadn't made those mistakes. I always cared. Sorry for being a jerk. We could have had years. I love you._ Nothing could be said. So there they lay, Haymitch sprawled on the gravel road in his best suit and Effie in her favourite pink dress on her knees next to him. They once again gripped hands tightly, close enough to hear the others heartbeat, the very last few heartbeats for one of them. And they waited quietly in the darkness for the seconds to slip by.


	2. 1: Waking Up

First chapter! I hope the prologue didn't scare you off. This chapters pretty long and is probably going to be a bit confusing , but I really wanted to get a lot of information out there so the story can truly begin.

**Songs**

Wake Up – Arcade Fire

Celebration Guns – Stars

The Beginning After the End – Stars

After the Storm – Mumford and Sons

Blindsided – Bon Iver

Home is a Fire – Death Cab for Cutie

**Waking Up**

The room they put her in was not horrible. Compared to the torture room in the Capitol with its stark white walls and single piece of furniture, this was a luxury hotel room. It was small, but the sheets were warm and soft, and there were touches of homeliness around her. A pink lampshade that helped shield the dim yellow light, a small vase of some kind of flowers Effie had never seen before and even the unlooked at book lying on her bedside table all made her feel safe in the room. Safe enough so that when she woke up for a couple minutes of reprieve before slipping under again, she was able to make note of these little details. Someone had cared enough to add these touches, and so perhaps that same person would care enough to protect her if she let her guard down for a bit and closed her eyes willingly. She now felt safe enough to begin recovering. Because Effie Trinket, though she could not bear to admit it, was weak and broken.

Any recollections of how she had gotten here were dim. Her first few days were a blur of morphine addled sleep, where she constantly woke up convulsing and shaking, sure she was back in The Capitol and they were getting ready for another round of some form of torture. She knew there were several people coming in and out of her room but the pain and need for sleep had been too great for any of them to stick in her mind. Except for one person oddly enough– Haymitch. Effie could say he had seemed to be a constant figure in her hazy memories, frequently in the room for the worst of it. She didn't know what he had been doing – she assumed he was overlooking her treatment, maybe checking up on her. He surely had some reason for doing so, because he was also the first one to talk to her. To explain that the mass scale Rebellion had occurred, that the rebels had won and they had broken out the prisoners the Capitol was holding, including her. He told her they had found her locked up in one of the rooms, in nothing but a white hospital gown and bruises littering her tiny pale arms and face. Effie examined her own arms, where those bruises had now faded into light purple smudges. She hadn't even looked at her face since arriving here, since there seemed to be no mirrors located anywhere. Haymitch had also mentioned how she hadn't been coherent enough to understand what was going on when they came to rescue her. How she still wasn't coherent and this she could have sworn he had said with a hint of annoyance.

Effie bit her lip, somehow still feeling insulted amidst the bigger things she had to be worrying about right now. It had been true though – her mind had been high in space somewhere, floating out of reach, barely making a connection to the words he was saying. The drugs were to blame. There was one question she had managed to ask, and it had managed to make him drop his businesslike attitude. It was when she had asked quietly what was going to happen to her, the Capitol mentor, the one who probably didn't have much right to be here. Haymitch did something that he'd never done before. Gently, he took her hand and looked her right in the eyes, no hint of drunkenness or mocking in them and said those four words that had given her peace – "You're safe with me."

Looking back, lying in her little bed, Effie couldn't even be sure the moment had happened. In fact, she was sure it hadn't. She snorted quietly to herself - it was so out of character for the both of them, though God knows she had been nothing like herself in those days. _I was probably hallucinating._ It was only now, when she was almost fully recovered physically, aching to start moving her limbs and get some nice clothes on, that Effie started to wonder more. There was so much he hadn't told her, probably worried that she was still too delicate to hear it. He hadn't told her exactly what they had done to her in the Capitol. He hadn't given her any details about what exactly had occurred in the Rebellion, and what was going to happen with the Capitol citizens. She had dozens of these kinds of questions and Effie wanted answers.

She wanted to get out of her room, and start helping. After all, she was positive she had held her tongue about what she knew during _those_ days. She was also fairly certain she wouldn't be lying here if she had betrayed her side. _My side, the rebels against the Capitol. _Effie tried out the words in her mouth. Her side, her _team_ would still have a lot to do even if the Rebellion was supposedly over. Haymitch had told her she was in some kind of hospital they had set up for people just like her. The makeshift nurses that were probably thrust into the job proved just as much as well, when they scurried in and checked her vitals, and made any notes they needed to on a chart. Whatever had been wrong with her, besides the obvious pain, seemed to be fixed for now.

Effie turned in her bed, eyes closed as the hundreds of questions she still had repeated themselves in her mind. There was clearly nothing left in The Capitol for her even if she wanted there to be, so Haymitch or someone might as well tell her everything else that had happened so she could get out of here and start using her powers for good.

Effie wasn't sure how long she lay there before there was a soft knock on her door. "Enter." Her voice was rusty, and she had to have a good couple coughs to clear it out. She couldn't remember the last time she had spoken so loudly.

It was Haymitch. Without any words, he sat in the one chair that stood a meter or so away from her bed. Somehow, after all that happened, she still felt annoyed at the sight of him. His infuriating, cocky demeanor and always tousled hair had not changed. Therefore, she decided she wouldn't be the first to say something, no matter how badly she wanted to get out of the room. Effie adjusted her position in the bed slowly, fluffing up her blanket and smoothing out any creases. She bit the inside of her cheek – _let him speak first, let him_. The silence lasted another minute, both of them determinedly not looking at each other, until they both broke into speech at the same time.

"I have several important questions for you."

"Let me guess, you're about to not stop talking for an hour."

The room was silent again, while Effie rolled her eyes and Haymitch smirked. Nothing had changed, Effie was already feeling impatient dealing with the District 12 mentor – clearly whatever openness Haymitch might have had a couple days ago was gone.

"Well, wouldn't you be curious? I want to know what's happening out there. It's not like you told me anything useful earlier."

This was an incorrect statement and she knew it, even when she spat it out with vengeance. Haymitch didn't reply. Taking a closer look, Effie had to admit he looked exhausted. The circles underneath his eyes were darker than she had ever seen them before, even after nights of particularly hard drinking. He looked rugged – judging by his stubble Haymitch hadn't had a shave in days. She wondered why he would bother showing up here anymore at all, now that she was going to be fine. He had to have a big hand with the rebellion, and she felt sure he was needed at all times to make decisions and do whatever else head rebels needed to do.

"You know, nevermind."

Closing her eyes, Effie let her head turn so it was facing forward, as her whole body seemed to drain itself of whatever little passion and fight remained in there before. She was exhausted too. The only steps she had taken since getting here were to go to the washroom, and even those short journeys winded her. Her body was not strong, though she wanted to think it was, and her mind simply did not have the energy. Maybe she had been wrong earlier – she'd probably do more harm than good if she tried to help out, if Haymitch would even let her. And why would he? She was not anything more than a Capitol citizen. But that didn't explain why she was so sure she had memories of Haymitch coming to visit her multiple times in her early days here.

"It's not as simple as you just having a few questions I can answer. I came here to tell you…something else."

"Have you been coming to visit me at all?"

"Really? You're worried about whether you had visitors right now?"

Silence fell again. His tone had been rude and abrupt, Effie decided. He didn't really warrant an answer, though when he asked her how she was feeling she decided to humour him. They went through the process of small talk, about a minute long before Haymitch stopped talking and seemed to finally be getting to what he needed to say in the first place. He was rubbing his eyes with one hand when Effie finally opened her own eyes to peek. The horror of what he would surely now begin to tell her dawned on Effie. If he had made a special trip to let her know something, it had to be bad. She knew that Peeta and Katniss and others were alive, but the numbers of the dead had to be huge, and Effie didn't want to hear the names of people she knew and loved. She wondered briefly about her friends in the Capitol and her high rise apartment in a building that probably no longer stood. Everyone slaughtered for the cause, everything destroyed. It was a completely different world out there, and Effie felt she couldn't even begin to comprehend it locked away in her small bed in her small room. She realized she had been avoiding thinking about it, and now Haymitch was here to wake her up.

"Well? Go ahead. What did you want to tell me. Who's dead? What's going on?"

"It's not the Rebellion I have to talk to you about, sweetheart. All that you'll see soon enough, soon as you're well enough to get out of this room. It's something else. To do with why you got taken."

He was scaring her. Through half closed eyes she saw he was fidgeting while crossing and uncrossing his leg, and when he finally managed to make full eye contact with Effie, he had her full attention. No matter how her brain might still be addled, this was not the Haymitch she knew – this one was nervous and jumpy and was frightening her with his attempt at nonchalance. She was meeting his eyes clearly for the first time in monthes - there were no drugs in her, no alcohol in him. But all she saw in them was regret, and this pressed down on her chest more than anything else. What was he going to tell her? No, she didn't think the something else was joyous, that he had managed to find her favourite pink flower clip or that he had the cooks here bake her favourite vanilla bean coconut white chocolate scones.

"I've been told over and over not to tell you, to let you rest and keep you in your state of blissful unknowing, but I think you have the right to know."

"All right then, go."

He still hesitated before he spoke, and when he did, his words were quiet and slow.

"You're adopted, yeah? Your parents passed away in a fire?"

"Well, yes…"

This was sudden, this was blunt, and this was definitely unexpected. Effie hadn't thought of her biological parents for a long time. She had been adopted from as early as she could remember, by two government workers, Wilhelmina and Tiberius Trinket. She felt a sudden pang in her chest –she didn't feel comfortable asking Haymitch, but she would have to find out what had happened to her parents, her Capitol parents that were an enemy to the cause. Effie could feel tears start to well up, which she quickly subdued, not daring to let Haymitch see. She had chosen her side, but there hadn't been any time to think about goodbyes. She hadn't seen her parents since before the last Hunger Games, and she wondered if they even knew what had happened to her. They couldn't have, or they would have tried to do something. She knew her mother especially had some standing in the government. It was her mother who had gotten Effie the job as a mentor in the first place, the job she had dreamed of since she was a young girl.

Haymitch looked at her with a sad little smile on his face. Effie could only look back, truly unsure of where he was going with this. She saw something in his eyes. Pity? Anger?

"See, sweetheart," he gave a short, hard laugh, though there was nothing comical in the situation. "They screwed you over too. The way you were raised, who you were raised by…it was all in their plan. To make you the perfect little Capitol citizen, even more so than other perfect little girls born and raised in the Capitol…..Not daring to disobey, not daring to challenge anything, though it didn't end up working for them in your case."

Now the anger was unmistakable. His eyes never broke contact with Effie's, unreservedly, shamelessly.

"I still don't understand…"her voice was nothing more than a whisper.

"Your parents were rebels Effie. Killed by the Capitol."


End file.
